The first issue of French Journal du droit international (Clunet) for 2013 was just released. It contains two articles addressing issues of private international law and several casenotes. A full table of content is available here.

In the first article, Marie-Eve Pancrazi (University of Aix Marseille) explores the regime of Foreign Assets in International Insolvency (L’actif étranger du débiteur en procédure collective). The English abstract reads:

Bankruptcy law has always tried to be pragmatic. It never eludes difficulties likely to arise from the scattering of companies’ assets over several countries. Bankruptcy law takes up this challenge by proclaiming that domestic insolvency proceedings exercise their authority over all the debtor’s assets, urbi et orbi, as it were. But is not this posture rather vainglorious? One would be inclined to think so, when considering national sovereignties. And yet, this cautious attitude needs to be put in perspective, since it is not valid within Europe, and since, in any case, no reaction from foreign jurisdictions could eclipse the obligations which such authority implies for the debtor, the creditors and the bodies of the procedure.

The second article is an empirical study on exequatur in la Grande Region, i.e. Luxembourg and surrounding regions of France, Belgium and Germany. The study was conducted by a team of researchers of the university of Luxembourg who collected data on judgments rendered by courts of Arlon, Trier, Saarbrücken, Lorraine and Luxembourg.

The proposal to recast the Brussels I Regulation issued by the European Commission in December 2010 has launched a debate among European scholars and policy makers as to whether the exequatur procedure should be abolished within the European Union. While the European lawmaker has argued that the exequatur procedure is too costly, most scholars have responded that the public policy exception is a unique remedy against violations of human rights. Are the costs of the exequatur procedure really too high? This article contributes to this debate by offering an empirical analysis of the exequatur orders delivered by nine courts of four different member states based in the Grande Region surrounding Luxembourg.